A 2M Pager Filter

After seeing several

articles regarding
pager interference on
the 2 metre band and
finding I was between
projects, I began
working on RF filters
to see if I could come
up with a sure fire
"anyone could make
it" cure for the pager
interference which is
caused by the
transmitters just
above the Australian 2
metre band. If you
want to skip the story,
you can go straight to
the section on "How to
build the filter", click
the button below.
In Australia, it is common for paging systems to transmit at frequencies just

above 148 MHz. The Australian 2 metre amateur band is between 144 and 148 MHz
which means that the very strong pager transmitters are capable of interfering with
communications within our amateur band. Sometimes it can be the problem of the
transmitter but more likely it is the receiving equipment which these days is
designed to be broadband and so cannot tune out the unwanted signals. The best
solution to this "intermodulation distortion" problem is some sort of filter at the
front end of the receiver. Unfortunately this can not always help if you have a multi
band radio as the filter may work too well. Anyway have a listen around 148
149MHz and you will hear what I am talking about. The number of members of our
club who suffer from this interference at home is small and luckily I am not one of
them. However I know of at least two of our members who were driven crazy by
this and wanted to do something about it. Usually the interference gets into your

receiver by intermodulation distortion ( look it up as this article is about the cure

not the cause). Several methods can be employed to prevent the interfering signals
from reaching your receiver. In similar articles, several filters have been described
that would help with the problem but were not going to help the two amateurs that
I know of. As I mentioned before, I do not suffer from the problem at home and I
am not going to look at a cure for mobile operation but as I am lucky enough to
have the equipment to test and tune this type of filter, I thought it would be
interesting to take a look at building possibly a better filter than those previously
described. To start with, I spent many hours trawling the internet looking for other
peoples ideas and aside from a full blown cavity filter (or two), the best I found was
the Helical filter. The features of the Helical filter are that they are small (relative to
a full blown cavity filter) and very effective for their size. The helical coil (helix) is
cut to be a roughly a quarter wavelength at the notch frequency. These filters can be
cheap, but throw more money at it and it is bound to work better. Anyone can make
one. Helical filters can be designed to be High Pass, Low Pass, Band Pass or Band
Reject. However the criteria I was looking for are:
Minimize or eliminate the problem interference with minimum insertion loss (the
amount of loss of the signal that we want to hear).
Keep the cost reasonable.
Make it suitable for transmit as well as receive without bypass circuitry (if
possible).
Keep it small enough to fit on or under the operating bench without having to
strengthen the bench to support it.
Use readily available materials.
The Band Reject (or Notch) filter was the way to go as Band Pass filters tend to
have a higher insertion loss and trying to get sharp (steep sided) cut off frequencies
with a Low pass filter is not easily obtainable. Description: The Helical Filter uses a
resonant circuit formed by the inductance of a coil of wire called the Helix and
capacitance formed by a metal screen surrounding the coil of wire; together which,
at the tuned frequency, will perform the filtering. All my attempts were variations
of designs found elsewhere so I make no claim to originality. Version 1: Although
this filter worked, I was not really happy with its performance so I set about making
Version 2. This newer version used more of my gained knowledge and some
formulae that applied to Helical Filters. I even found a program that will do some
calculations for you (called of all things Helical). Figure 1 is a picture of my first
attempt at a Helical Notch Filter (Version 1). It comprised two helical resonators
and fine tuning was achieved by the capacitance added by the brass screws seen
inserted at the top of the die cast box. The original design used piston type trimmer
capacitors but I eliminated these in favour of the brass screw rods which have very
low loss and therefore should create a higher Q for the filter. By the way I did try
the trimmer capacitors but was not happy with the fine adjustments so that is why I

went to the brass screws instead. I managed to tune the helicals to a slightly higher
than required frequency without the brass screws by stretching and compressing
the helix coils and pulling them down to final frequency with the screws. I later put
a small disc on the end of each screw which was more effective.

Versio
n 1.
Several
other
versions of
this type of
filter were
found on
websites
but they
were
tuning the
helix with
variable
capacitors.
I found it
easier to
use the
brass
tuning rods
shown in
this
picture.

The above filter gave me approximately 20dB of attenuation which was ok but
could or should have been better. Each half of the filter gave 10dB of attenuation.
The bandwidth of the notch was very narrow which I was happy with and the
insertion loss at 2m was about 1dB. Although not terrifically rugged, this filter
would work at a pinch. The impedance matching at 50 Ohms was acceptable for
transmitting purposes from 145 147.5MHz. Also the die cast lid could not be
installed due to the detuning caused so a piece of PCB was cut to size instead.. The
coils perhaps could have been mounted vertically in an enclosure; then the lid
would not have had such an affect. Note that the helix coils are floating (not
connected) at the hot (top) end. When tested in series with a receiver at one of our
worst sites, the receiver became usable again however I was hoping for something
better.

Version 2:
Well they say that bigger is better and it is the same for filters. I took several other
designs, disseminated them and started to build what should be a much improved
filter. This time I had a plan, and that was to build the helix using copper capillary
tube 3mm in diameter, and the outer screen was to be copper plumbing pipe
100mm in diameter. The capillary tubing should give the coil some rigidity. I was
going to build and test the filter, then pull it apart, silver plate the helix and interior
of the pipe, then retest it to see how much difference the plating made. This is
because silver has the best RF conductivity, and should increase the Q and the
attenuation at the notch frequency and less attenuation at the desired frequencies
(insertion loss). I managed to obtain the 100mm pipe easily but the helix tubing
would have to wait for an EBAY delivery. The 3mm capillary tubing arrived just
prior to my leaving for a trip overseas (well deserved if you ask me) but I managed
to do a few tests before going. The photo below shows the Version 2 filter.

Versio
n 2.
A single
helix with
the tapped
connection
into a "T"
BNC
connector
with
tuning
performed
by the
small disc
soldered
onto the
end of a
long
screw.

Notice that there is only one connection to the filter and that is via a BNC socket.
The idea is to connect a T piece BNC adapter with the antenna connected to one
side and the transceiver to the other side of the adapter. I wound the coil (helix)

longer than required, as you would, and then proceeded to cut and stretch /
compress it until the frequency came to just a bit higher than required. There is a
combination of helix length versus number of turns that gives a sharper notch. A
brass tuning screw similar to what was tried in Version 1 was installed for fine
tuning. I did not want to add too much capacitance using the screw as this could
affect the Q so I tried to set the self resonant frequency within +100kHz of the
desired frequency (in my case 148.700MHz) which was between the two strongest
pager transmitters in the southern Melbourne suburb of Keysborough. Hopefully
the attenuation notch would be wide enough to kill off some of both of these
frequencies. I was quite impressed by the results as I could get 30dB attenuation at
the centre of the notch with a bandwidth that gave me about 25dB of attenuation at
each of the two pager frequencies. The next concern was what was the insertion
loss and impedance matching going to be like in the 2m band. The insertion loss
was found to be about 1dB but is not easily measured on the test gear used. In the
case that I was working on, this particular amateur really only wanted to use 145
146MHz region of 2 metres which made it slightly easier to obtain a reasonable
SWR at 50 Ohm that far away from the notch frequency. The location of the
tapping point for the BNC connector on the helix dictated where the best match
would be without really affecting the notch frequency. A good match was achieved
at close to 146MHz with the notch frequency remaining at 148.700MHz.
Unfortunately I also discovered that the filter presented a deep notch in the 70cm
Band at almost the third harmonic, which meant that the filter could not be used
on a multi band transceiver unless some form of bypass switching was utilised for
transmitting.
In the meantime I was contemplating yet another design but needed another
amateurs help in obtaining some more copper pipe. While waiting for said pipe, I
went back to Version 1 and retested at 70cm. I found that this filter did not exhibit
the harmonic properties of Version 2 and would work on a multi band rig for
receive and transmit. I also set about collecting parts to build a relay control to
bypass in transmit mode while waiting to start on Version 3. I found a 100mm
diameter coffee can and quickly built another model of Version 2 as I wanted to
know how good the filter would be with a rough and ready approach. The filter took
all of 15 minutes to build and exhibited pretty much the same results as the other
model built in the copper pipe instead of this extremely thin tin can. The
attenuation was about 25dB at the centre of the notch which was not bad for a
quickie.

Versi
on
2A.
A
"quickie
" coffee
can
version
of
number
2.

Version 3:
Of course not being happy with either of the first two designs (or the coffee can), I
started again. This time I found a design similar to Version 2 but on a smaller scale;
in a 75mm length of 50mm diameter copper pipe. The helix was built along similar
lines as before but instead of tapping the coil at some point close to the earthy end,
a coupling link was used. This was an easy build, taking about an hour once I had
collected the parts required. Notice also that due to the coupling link, there are now
two BNC connectors which I later found useful. By now I had run out of the
capillary tube for coil winding so I dismantled a very high current transformer to
use the secondary winding wire. This was great as I had now found a seemingly
endless supply of 3mm diameter soft copper wire. I could experiment as much as I
wanted. This filter showed an extremely low SWR across the 2m band with an
insertion loss hardly measurable also. The notch was tuned for 148.7MHz or close
to because I did not install the usual brass screw with capacitor plate on the end for
fine tuning. Instead I stretched and compressed the helix to get it on frequency.
This wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. However if I put end caps on the filter
I would have to use something to do the fine tuning so that would come later.

Versio
n 3.
This was
the most
successful
of those
that I
built.

The attenuation at the notch frequency measured 15dB which was somewhat less
than Version 2. I experimented with the coupling link coil but did not do any better
than this figure. Note that the construction of the coupling link included a series
capacitor (15pF) to tune it to work at 144 - 148MHz. Hence of course this filter
would be no good at 70cm for transmitting through. This version of the filter
seemed to give the best overall performance, taking into account size, insertion
loss, attenuation, and receive problems at 70cm. I also experimented with the
coupling link trying one with 2.5 turns instead of the 1.5 as shown here. I also
decreased the value of the capacitor from 15pF to 5pF. The results were great for
attenuation as this was now 25dB but the SWR curve was not great, making it
unsuitable for transmitting through. However if one was going to use a bypass
circuit for transmitting anyway, the increased coupling link would be an advantage
if more attenuation was required. As I was beginning to think my time was up for
filters and it was time to move on to other projects, I made a change again to the
coupling circuit. This time I kept the 1.5 turn coupling coil but put a 10pF capacitor
in series with it and mounted it just inside the bottom loop of the helix coil instead
of outside of the helix. This achieved better coupling (20dB+) and the SWR curve
was still acceptable from 145 to 147.5MHz. I have built two of these and tried to
keep them identical but achieved slightly different results between them. Anyway
they can be used in series to give 40dB+ of attenuation and still maintain a good
SWR over 2m.

Versio
n 3.
filter
complete
with end
caps and
screw
tuning
adjusters.

I took the filters to one victim's (read as "amateur with pager interference") shack
and found that he was suffering more interference than the filters could attenuate
so I took them away again. Upon trying them at a second victims shack, the
problem disappeared immediately with only one of the filters in line. We
determined that this amateur was suffering intermod. from a mixed source of more
than two frequencies; one of which was a pager and another, a commercial two way
transmitter. It was going to take some more work to help amateur number 1. I left
the two cans with amateur number 2 who gave one to yet another sufferer who
immediately wanted to know when I was going into production. He was pleased
that once again he could use 2m. I could not find it in my heart to rip the filters
away from these guys who were now enjoying pager free 2 metre operation but as I
needed to work on amateur number 1 still, I broke the news and retrieved the cans
in the hope of coming up with yet a better solution. After further testing I gave the
"cans" back to a couple of very happy amateurs. Read on and you will find out what
I did for amateur number 1.
The equipment used for tuning the filters included an IFR1200S with Spectrum
Analyser and Tracking Generator plus a 50 Ohm Return Loss Bridge for checking
the impedance matching (SWR). Oh and by the way, I never got around to silver
plating any of these designs. Maybe another time as I had spent quite a lot of time
and money on filters for the time being.
References: Various Internet sites too numerous to mention
RSGB Handbook
ARRL Handbook
ARRL Antenna Handbook
CQ Magazine June 1997

Conclusions:
The lessons learned :
Read a lot before starting to build.
Copper absorbs a lot of heat. (There is another story behind this comment but that
will keep for another time)
Helical Filters work extremely well but the dimensions need to be right to obtain
the best shaped notch or pass.
There are rules to adhere to.
They are only meant to work on one band.
Oh! and as for amateur number 1, I finished the Version 2 filter, set up a
coaxial relay to bypass the filter in transmit mode using an RF sensing switching
circuit and connected it all to his dual band (2m / 70cm) radio for which he is
very grateful. He now enjoys using 2m again. As for me, I packed up all the
leftover bits and found another project to work on.
Addendum: Since building the filters described above, I had the need to build a 6
metre band pass filter for our repeater which is receiving some unknown type of
interference - probably intermodulation. I have included the report on this filter
as an extra although it has nothing to do with pager interference. Someone may
be interested in the results. The design for this filter although following the
standard pattern for helical filters was described by Sam KT4QW. Although his
website did not show all the details, he was gracious enough to respond to my
email with the extra information that I required to build it. His design worked
first up and we tried it on our 6m repeater which has a 6 notch duplexer already.
Unfortunately the extra filter did not cure our problem but I learned some more
in the process of building this band pass filter.

The
6
metr
e
Ban
d
Pass
filter

Naturally this filter is much larger than the 2m versions with the diameter of the
can being 140mm. The height is 200mm. This is the view from the cold end of the
filter before fitting of the bottom cover. At the top of the filter (far end) the fine
tuning disc can be seen. This gave about 1MHz of variation which should be plenty.
As the helix was quite large, it was physically very unstable hence the plastic tubing
which was glued to the windings for rigidity. The 1.25 turn coupling coil is seen at
the near end or cold end of the helix. SWR at the bandpass frequency was 1.3:1 and
the insertion loss was hardly measurable however on real tests, the incoming signal
did lose some strength. This is unfortunately a trait of bandpass filters. Also
unfortunately the interference on our 6m repeater was not fixed by the insertion of
this bandpass filter so it was removed, but it was another good learning curve.

HOW TO BUILD THE PAGER FILTER

If you took the time to read the notes leading up to this part then you may want to
build one of these filters for yourself. It is very easy and with all the required parts
should take no more than an hour assuming that the tuning is done afterwards.
The tube is simply a 65mm length of 50mm diameter copper plumbing pipe. A
scrap metal yard is a good source of short lengths. The helix is wound using 3mm
thick copper wire. I was lucky enough to unwind a spare high current transformer
and obtained enough wire to do all my experiments with. Wind 6 to 7 turns on a
25mm former and allow it to slightly expand when it is removed. Stretch the helix
to about 50mm long and bend the last 30mm of what will be the bottom (cold or
earthy) end of the helix at right angles so that it can be passed through a hole to be
drilled in the side of the pipe and soldered in place. This hole and the BNC
mounting holes are all 15mm from the bottom of the pipe. The hole for soldering
the cold end of the helix is about 20mm from the BNC hole. Try to keep the

windings of the helix uniformly spread but this can be finely adjusted when the
helix is mounted inside the tube.
A 1.5 turn coil needs to be wound using slightly smaller diameter wire onto a 15mm
diameter former. Both ends of the coil are bent at a right angle leaving about 20mm
of straight wire. This coil will be mounted centrally between the centre pins of the
BNC connectors however one end will be cut short and a ceramic capacitor will be
soldered in series. The value for this capacitor I found to be 10pF. You could try
other values if you want to put the extra effort in to see if better results can be
obtained in both the notch and SWR.
The holes for the BNC connectors are drilled 15mm from the bottom of the tube
and are 180 degrees opposite. I used panel mount connectors with a thread and nut
on the body.
The 1.5 turn coupling coil and 10pF capacitor in series with it are mounted just
inside the bottom loop of the helix coil instead of outside of the helix.
The end covers are really for physical protection of the internals of the filter and a
convenient method of providing tuning. They were made from double sided PCB
using a circular hole saw in a drill. That left a hole in the centre which I used at one
end to insert the bolt for tuning and left the other end open. The tuning bolt is
brass and 50mm long with two nuts; one of which is soldered to the top of the end
cover and the other is used as a locking nut when tuning is completed. Solder a
copper or brass disc of about 12mm diameter to the inside end of the bolt. This will
give variable capacitance for tuning the helix to the notch frequency.
To obtain the best Q, it is best to cut the helix to just slightly higher than resonance
without the bolt tuner. The helix can be expanded and compressed carefully trying
to keep uniformity in the windings and the turns spacing. You should end up with
about 5.25 turns on the helix. After the end cover is installed, the notch frequency
can be tuned down with the bolt adjuster. This method is quite accurate. If you are
suffering from interference from multiple pager transmitters on different
frequencies, you may need to tune the helix somewhere between the frequencies
aiming to be closer to the frequency of the stronger transmitter frequency than the
others.